Getting Ready For Another School Year

The boys are starting school soon, and I have to admit I will miss them while they are in school. We enjoyed a lot of fun activities together this summer, including days at the pool and waterpark fun. How did the time fly so fast? I had so many more things planned, and the summer just sped by regardless of whether I checked everything off our summer bucket list or not. I’m also not looking forward to getting up at 6am, or driving 12 miles each way on roads covered with snow and ice once winter hits again in a few short months. And the shorter days? I think I’m least excited about that. It’s dark by 4pm on those super short days, and I love my long, hot summer days.

I realize my sadness about sending them off to school again and the coming colder weather was sort of spiraling into negativity, and I need to focus on what I do like about this time of year instead. There are so many wonderful holidays in the autumn, and New York is just beautiful in the fall, so it’s time to change my focus and think: about pumpkin pies and flavored coffees, beautiful color-changing leaves and jumping into leaf piles, the fun of learning new things with the boys in school. I love reading biographies of important figures from the past with them. I also love celebrating their birthdays, shopping for cozy autumn clothes, seeing family again during the family holidays, and being able to capture beautiful images in the evenings when the sun sets a little earlier, casting a gorgeous glow everywhere.

The boys will see their school friends again. And they will learn new things, have fun with new activities, and enjoy all the great things that the school year brings. And since I will have some free time again, I can take up some of my interests and start writing again, and start a new photography project.

I shopped for all their school supplies, school clothes, and started prepping for their homemade lunches each day (no hot lunch at school for them this year). They had a pretty good time shopping for new back-to-school clothes for the autumn, and are excited about starting Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts this year. I will be a Cub Scout den leader this year for the first time, joining my husband who has been a Boy Scout den leader for two years now. Piano lessons will continue, and the biggest change in their back-to-school schedule will be Saturday mornings, when they take a weekly cultural class that includes language, dance, and cultural studies.

I’m trying to schedule activities the boys love, while at the same time not over-extending them. If it all works out it will be an annual thing, and if they don’t enjoy the new Saturday morning class (it’s three hours!), it’s the activity that won’t happen again next year. I already feel a little badly about over-scheduling them- they literally have no mornings they can sleep in until Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks- and I worry about it affecting their grades, so my efforts toward zen parenting means I will be ok with letting activities they don’t love go. And I will be. As long as they are happy, love school, and aren’t stressed, the rest will work out however it works out ♥︎